A Piece of My Heart
by Squeak4ever
Summary: They're dead, all dead..." She thought she had lost them forever, the three people who occupied the warmest places in her heart. A Hermione Story.


Disclaimer: JKR is a wonderful woman. And she's loaded. Unfortunately, I am not her, otherwise I wouldn't have to save up like crazy for The Sims 2 (even though it isn't out until the second half of '04)  
  
A/N: Read and Review (  
  
Prologue  
  
i"-you're a witch Miss Granger-"  
  
"-I'm Hermione Granger by the way, who are you? -"  
  
"-if you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too! -"  
  
"-I've got to go to the library-"  
  
"-you two are so stupid-"  
  
"-HAVE YOU GONE MAD? ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT? -"  
  
"-Me! Books! And cleverness! There are more important things like friendship and bravery and - oh Harry - be careful! -"  
  
"-first- to Mr Ronald Weasley. For the best played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years, I award Gryffindor house fifty points. Second- to Miss Hermione Granger. For cool use of logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor house fifty points. Third- to Mr Harry Potter. For pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Gryffindor house sixty points. There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr Neville Longbottom-"  
  
"-we can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust-"  
  
"-Happy Birthday Hermione-"  
  
"-hasn't he asked you to call him Vicky yet? -"  
  
"-Ron, you are the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet-"  
  
"-we'll call her Alexandra. Alexandra Virginia Weasley-"  
  
"-Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger. Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood. We're here to save someone, unless your ministry can do it first-"  
  
"-there's a prophecy-"  
  
"-we'll always love you Hermione, you know that don't you? -"  
  
"-do you take this man, Ronald Arthur Weasley to be your lawful wedded husband? -"  
  
"-it's going to be tomorrow-"  
  
"-we'll always be there for you Hermione-"  
  
"-I love you Ron-"  
  
The familiar battlefield swam into view, the sky was as gray and cloudy as always, a perfect day for the slaughter that was taking place. She had never seen the Hogwarts grounds look so grim. Everywhere lay the felled bodies of noble witches and wizards intermingling with the corpses of death eaters. The death toll that day was catastrophic. Half the people who died during the second dark war - including death eaters - had died on that day when the balance of fate had been equal, ready to swing either way.  
  
Then, a false move, a stunning spell from a death eater - Antonin Dolohov - sent her sprawling on the ground. She didn't see the end of the battle.  
  
She awoke almost four hours later in the Great Hall of Hogwarts; it had been turned into a temporary hospital with Poppy Pomfrey and others treating the wounded. The atmosphere was one of somewhat subdued celebration.  
  
It was Albus Dumbledore himself - looking tired and wan - who bought her the news. The prophecy had held true in a way. Harry had killed Lord Voldermort but then he had vanished without a trace.  
  
Her response never varied from night to night: "Where's Ron? Where's Ginny?"  
  
He answered with an indefinable look on his face. "They have not been found yet," he always said.  
  
She would run from the Great Hall, his meaning in that quiet sentence not fully sinking in. She refused to believe they could be dead. She searched the battlefield for hours and hours till the first light of dawn broke over the horizon. They weren't there, they were never there. Someone - she had no idea who - had taken her arm and led her inside, where she had been dosed with a sleeping potion and it was left till the morning before she had to face what, deep down, she already knew. Ron, Harry, Ginny, missing, presumed dead.  
  
Someone - again, who? She suspected Molly Weasley - had bought her three month old daughter to her and she had hung on to the placid red-haired, brown-eyed baby girl as though her life depended on it.  
  
She had taken her daughter and gone to her parents' house.  
  
"Hermione, what's happened?"  
  
"They're all dead, dead."  
  
There she remained for three years. Three awful years, before taking a teaching job at Hogwarts and leaving her daughter with her parents. But through it all, Hermione Weasley never cried. /i 


End file.
